An Apple, a Kiss
by WhiteLadyoftheRing
Summary: [AU, set between 1x11 and 1x12] David walks her home. It's hardly discreet, but he is a gentleman and she is the woman who saved his life. They're friends. That's all.


_For Sheena, on her birthday. Hope you enjoy it, love!_

_Thank you, Angie, for the spot-beta!_

* * *

**An Apple, a Kiss**

_Only ever really one story:  
a boy and a girl and a dream of the world.  
An apple, a kiss, a moment of sky;  
A moment you choose without knowing why.  
~'Adam and Eve', October Project_

_..._

David walks her home. It's hardly discreet, but he _is_ a gentleman and she _is_ the woman who saved his life. They're friends. That's all. Friends. The platonic type. No benefits whatsoever. Nope. None. None at all.

She reminds herself of that as she scrapes her key into the lock and lets him inside. They kick off their shoes by the door, and she latches the lock again behind them. "Emma's at the station," she says, as casually as she can manage, but there isn't much 'casual' about the way his hands slide around her waist and pull her body flush to his.

His lips close over hers briefly. "Kathryn's got book club for another two hours."

She tries to hide her grimace, but somehow David already knows her too well and offers an apologetic smile. It's a shame to sour this - this … _whatever_ it is - with talk of Kathryn, but it's unfortunately a necessity. She clears her throat, stepping away from him before she loses all coherent thought. "Can - um - can I take your coat?"

He shrugs easily out of his jacket and she hangs it up alongside hers, removing her scarf and hat as well. "So this is it," he says, moving into the kitchen.

"What? Oh. Right. You've never been here before." She's suddenly self-conscious about the humble space - the mismatched chairs and the threadbare curtains. "I know it's not much-"

"I like it," he says, cutting her off. "It's very … _you_."

Logically, she thinks she should point out that he hasn't really known her long enough to decide whether or not something is _her_, but that whole argument seems to be a moot point with him. He knows her without knowing her, loves her as if he's loved her before.

He reads her mind, too. That's an even bigger mystery, though perhaps it's just a side effect of his knowing-but-not-knowing her. He reads her signals - the way her breath catches in her throat as he catches her hand in his own, the way her skin flushes at his smile - and he _knows_. So he kisses her, not chastely this time, but slowly, tasting her as he drinks her in, his fingertips caressing the shell of her ear.

Mary Margaret isn't a bold woman by any means, especially not in this department. Somehow, she can only remember having sex at all once in the past decade, and that was following one too many drinks with Dr. Whale. But David stirs something unknown within her, a newfound confidence of sorts, and she steers him toward the bedroom alcove without breaking the kiss.

He gets the hint, and before she knows it he's swept her off her feet and is carrying her. She feels his left arm tremble beneath her, but he manages to set her gently on the bed, guiding her head to a pillow. He's married, she reminds herself sternly. He's married and picnics and stolen kisses are one thing, but _this_ is something else altogether. She should stop this, or at the very least they should talk about it. She opens her mouth and-

"Sorry my bedroom doesn't have any walls."

That wasn't what she'd meant to say.

"Like you've ever needed walls," he replies.

And they share a dumbfounded look before he turns to close the curtains - a bit unsteadily. He's nervous. Then again, she's nervous too. Or she should be, she thinks. But as she sits up and moves to lean against the headboard, opening her arms to him, there is no doubt - despite the lack of walls, despite his _wife_. In fact, it's as if she's done this a thousand times before.

"Are-" He clears his throat, fumbling as he works at the buttons of his flannel shirt. "Are you sure?"

The shirt comes free at last as he sits down beside her, and she pushes it off his shoulders in one fluid motion. "What do you think?" she says, though a simple 'yes' would suffice.

He falters at that, but moves in to kiss her regardless, hands slipping beneath her sweater to run his palms up the smooth skin of her back. She sighs into him.

It's strange, she thinks, how she changes around him - how suddenly she knows the right words to say, how sure of herself she is when he looks at her like _that_. She breaks the kiss long enough to pull his undershirt over his head. It quickly becomes apparent why his arm had trembled, and she traces her fingertips over the gnarled, red flesh on his shoulder.

She presses her lips to one of the scars, and relishes the familiar response - the way his fingers come to tangle in her hair, the way his muscles tremble beneath her caress. She's sorry for it - this jagged wound beneath her fingertips. It may have been his idea, but it had been her arrow and-

Wait a second.

"David?"

"Mm?" he hums, tugging at her sweater.

"Where did you get this?"

His hand covers hers, pressing against the scar. He's far-off for a moment, as if reaching for some explanation hovering in the distance but coming up short. "I-" He clears his throat, frowning. "I don't know. The accident, I guess."

"David," she says, concerned. "Are you all right?"

He shakes himself. "It's - it's nothing. Just a little deja vu I guess."

She frowns, because that doesn't seem exactly right, and since the amnesia-

That thought is cut short, however, by him pulling her sweater over her head and closing his mouth over the side of her neck, sucking and nibbling in a way that she knows she'll be wearing a scarf tomorrow. He unhooks her bra blindly with one hand and she laughs, helping to rid him of his jeans and boxers. "Impressive?"

"What? It's a lot easier than-" He pauses, then presses a kiss to her jaw and begins work on her jeans. "It's a lot easier than it looks."

"Mm," she sighs, then gasps as he closes his mouth over her nipple, stroking with his tongue. There are no words then - not as he tugs her jeans and panties over her hips, nor as his mouth closes over her, finding just the right angle with his tongue. He slides one, then two fingers inside of her, stroking slowly, and she breathes his name but it sounds … _wrong_.

It doesn't feel wrong though, she thinks as she pulls him up even with her again, tasting them both as her tongue dips into his mouth. Nothing feels wrong between them - in fact, there's something so unmistakably _right_ about the way he hardens in her grasp, the way he presses his forehead to hers as he slides inside her.

"_You're a - girl."_

"_Woman,"_ her mind replies automatically. She shakes herself. "What did you say?" she asks breathlessly.

He looks at her with concern, smoothing her hair away from her eyes. Her body adjusts to the feel of him, his length and breadth and her hips rock instinctively against him, even as he urges himself to hold still. "I said 'are you all right?'" he breathes, and his own hips find a gentle rhythm with hers.

"_You ... you saved me."_

"_It seemed like the honorable thing to do."_

She nods, pushing past the echos in her mind. A story, she thinks. Must be from a story she's read, caught in her mind like a broken record.

He presses a kiss to her temple, to her lips. "You ready?"

"For what?"

"_My jewels."_

He laughs, and plasters on that charming smile that makes her heart beat fast and her knees go weak. "What do you think?"

She laughs too then, winding her legs around him to pull him further in. He moves slowly at first - achingly, _agonizingly_ slowly - and then he slides a hand between them and presses his fingers between her thighs. She gasps, feeling the tension build and build. He kisses her - her face, her neck, anywhere he can reach - and when their eyes meet, she _knows_ - even though she knows she shouldn't - that she couldn't possibly love him more.

"David-"

"_Aren't you a real Prince Charming."_

"Mary Margaret, I-"

"_I know who you are - Snow White."_

He kisses her and it hits her, washes over her in wave after wave of emotion and pleasure. Her body aches with it - with the familiar sensation of his skin against hers, the weight and strength of his body. The scent of apples.

"_You'll find me."_

"_Always."_

He follows a moment later, shuddering against her as his body sags against her own.

"_Well, you never have to worry. I will always find you."_

"_Do you promise?"_

It takes a moment to regain her senses, to regain her breath as her mind resolves the two voices within her. "Charming?" she breathes, clinging to him. She thinks vaguely she should be frightened, but it's hard to feel anything but safe while wrapped in his embrace.

He gasps. "Snow?" he whispers, propping himself up to see her. He smiles, and whatever he must see in her, she sees in him too because it's _him_. "Snow," he says, then kisses her tearfully.

"Charming," she sobs, though it's with tears of joy as he kisses again, and then again and again until she's dizzy. "You found me."

He laughs, a familiar sound that makes her pulse quicken, and she joins him, pressing feverish kisses to his face and neck, and then his hands and anything she can reach through a mixture of laughter and tears. "No. You found me."

They've found each other, really. Through everything - no less than three curses and two lands - they've found one another. And so after they've come down, tired and content to just be in one another's arms, they lay like that - Snow and Charming wrapped up in one another in Mary Margaret's bed - hopelessly lost and finally found.


End file.
